Payment
by napoleonbean
Summary: HouseYoung Wizards crossover. pretty much crack. also, a car crash.


Title: Payment

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

A/N: I don't know why I write crack like this. I mean really, a Young Wizards/House crossover. I think I'm going mad. Please, review in spite of my growing insanity.

Every spell has its price. He'd known that from the beginning. It wasn't something you got through your ordeal without knowing. Back then, when he'd first become a wizard, and everything seemed so easy, he'd thought that magic could do anything. The problem was, he had been right. Magic could do everything, but some things cost too much. He'd wanted to fix the world, at eleven, or twelve, or whatever age he was. In some small way he had. But when he'd wanted to fix_ his_ world, his leg, it turned out it would cost too much. (Nearly everything.) Wizardry was like that, sometimes.

He'd gone into medicine because it was a challenge. The same things that made him a good wizard made him a good doctor, the urge to find out how things worked and solve the puzzle. When he'd first met Wilson, he hadn't realized what the other man was. But it was a puzzle, the innocence that rolled off him in waves, coupled with the want to help, almost at any cost. The description made him sound like a saint, which House was sure he wasn't, except, as he found, in the most technical sense.

Abdals, pillars, they were called. And Wilson was one. He channeled the power of good, cheesy as it sounded, into the world. It made him important. It also complicated things, because House knew, and while he could keep a secret (which this most definitely was) just one slip would ruin everything. It also meant that, sort of unofficially, House was supposed to keep an eye on him.

For a supposed innocent, Wilson got into a lot of trouble. House couldn't follow him everywhere, of course, and wouldn't have even if he could, but he did have a few low-level spells keeping an eye on him. Wilson cheated. And flirted. All the time. However, he _did_ love all the women he slept with, and the manual had never specified _sexually_ innocent. The most frustrating thing of all was that people loved Wilson back, in spite of his reputation as a philanderer. You couldn't help it. Even House, who tried to avoid people as much as wizardry and his job would let him, found himself drawn to him, until it wasn't just because of his duty he protected Wilson, but something else too, that shuddered at the thought of loosing him.

And when he woke late at night to the shrilling of all his alarm spells at once, he didn't hesitate. He teleported, to save time, using a spell half-said that he saved for emergencies. What he found when he arrived where Wilson was (a dark road near a very mangled tree) half a second later, was blood. A lot of blood. Car accidents were always messy; he knew that from his work as a doctor, late nights during residency. This was different, though, this was close, and he could feel the shock creeping up on him, but he pushed it down, because he didn't have time.

There were times when House loved his photographic memory. Without needing to reference his manual, he started the healing spell, a serious one. He could feel the energy drain out of him, and braced himself for the pain. (The price for healing someone else was almost always pain.)

And it hurt. It fucking hurt. He was used to pain, constant pain, but this ripped through him, like fire, white hot and nearly deadly. He whispered the last few words through clenched teeth. He'd never been good at healing spells, but adrenaline does strange things to your power. The pain left, the new pain, that was, not the pain that always stayed with him. He was left lying nearly boneless, and totally exhausted, outside of Wilson's totaled car. Wilson, who was no longer dying, but sleeping peacefully.

He would pay an even bigger price, later, for the repression of the shock, and for the sheer energy expended. He would want to sleep for a week, and his leg would hurt every time he moved for a week after that. But Wilson, who the world needed, but more importantly, who he needed, would be okay.

And the paramedics, when they arrived, to a total absence of House, would wonder how he had managed to survive his car being totaled with not so much as a scratch. They would also wonder who had called 911, on an empty road in the middle of the night, but as House hadn't really used a cell phone, they'd never find out. Wilson wouldn't either, because that would lead to questions he really didn't want to answer with lies.


End file.
